Radiation therapy techniques are known. Generally speaking, a trained person such as a radiologist treats a patient having undesired tissue (such as a tumor) by irradiating the undesired tissue in order to reduce or eradicate that undesired tissue. As such treatment can also damage or destroy healthy tissue, such radiation is typically administered in accordance with a corresponding plan. The goal of such a plan is usually to control the shape, strength, timing, and other characterizing attributes of the radiation beam (or beams) to limit the effects of the radiation to only the undesired tissue.
The development of such a plan comprises a complicated and often dynamic undertaking. Such a plan will ordinarily need to account for both the general geometries and characteristics of a given radiation platform as well as the unique attributes or capabilities of a given specific radiation platform to be employed in a given treatment scenario. Such a plan will also often heavily depend upon information regarding the undesired tissue itself as well as desired tissue in the treatment volume. This can include, for example, information concerning the treatment volume itself (such as the size and shape of the treatment volume) as well as relative positioning of that treatment volume with respect to other adjacent desired tissue.
As radiation therapy often plays out in numerous treatment sessions over an extended period of time, yet another related complication can arise; changes over time with respect to the absolute and relative locations of the undesired and desired tissues and/or changes to their relative geometry. Such changes can be owing, for example, to differences in elasticity of the various materials involved (for example, as they react to various stimuli such as the relative fullness or emptiness of a nearby organ such as the bladder), shrinkage (or growth) of these materials, and so forth.
Such changes are problematic because they create at any given moment a need for a treatment plan that is likely different than a treatment plan that was previously used with a given patient. The time-consuming nature of forming and approving such a plan to accommodate such changes, however, is highly inconsistent with the temporal needs of the patient and the treatment facility itself in most cases. Furthermore, such plans typically require the approval of one or more expert practitioners who are often not immediately available to offer their approvals on a schedule that matches the dynamic requirements of such a treatment facility.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.